“In our technologically savvy world, to this day, Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, ‘feel’ and experience the new building spatially. Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool,” describes acting dean and former student of Graves, David Mohney.

An exhibition celebrating one of North America's foremost postmodern architects will open this October, marking 50 years of Michael Graves' practice. Past as Prologue maps the evolution of Graves' work in architecture and product design through an array of media including sculpture, painting, furniture, drawings and models. The comprehensive exhibition will begin with Graves' work from 1964 and conclude with works currently in progress. The exhibition will be hosted by Grounds for Sculpture with a mission to provide insight into the five-decade progression of Graves' unique design process. More on the exhibition after the break.

Responding to the bevy of critics slamming LG Electronics for building their new headquarters in the Palisades in New Jersey (half an hour north from NYC), Lee Rosenbaum, the Palisades-resident and architecture blogger known as CultureGrrl, maintains that "When it comes to preserving the 'pristine Palisades,' the boat has already sailed." Since LG's planned strip will be located on what is, according to Rosenbaum, already "a very commercial strip," she suggests that "that the incensed defenders of the purportedly unspoiled beauty of the Palisades [...] haven’t actually set eyes on them." Check out the images of her neighborhood as well as her very interesting Twitter tussles with The New York Times' Michael Kimmelman, Vanity Fair's Paul Goldberger, and New York Magazine's Justin Davidson at her blog, and let us know what you think of the debate in the comments below.

In the last 10 years the Office for Political Innovation has explored the question: ‘What happens to architectural practices when common notions of the urban (as something confined in cities) are replaced by others in which the urban is contained in urban enactments (ordinary interactions in which politics are produced)?’

At its peak, thousands passed through its massive, light-filled atrium. Today, Bell Labs Holmdel stands empty, all of its 1.9-million-square-feet utterly without life. An iconic example of the now-disparaged office park, the campus in central Jersey, was shuttered in 2007 and vacated soon after. Years later, it remains in an abandoned, if not unkept state. The grounds are cared for, the floors swept clean, and the interior plantings trimmed, however haphazardly. (That's saying something; in the laboratory's heyday, plastic shrubbery filled its glorious central hall.)

More about the building's future, and more photos by Rob Dobi, after the break

A rare house from Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian house period has been saved by the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas. The dramatic rescue plan to disassemble and move the house to a site over 1,000 miles away is required due to frequent flooding of the home's existing site in Millstone, New Jersey. The Crystal Bridges Museum will rebuild and restore the house at a site on their 120-acre grounds.

After three months of in-depth analysis and public outreach, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has shortlisted 10 design “opportunities” for the third and final round of Rebuild by Design. The design competition, focused on making New York’s Sandy-effected regions more resilient, sustainable, and livable, will now have the final project teams collaborate with local and regional stakeholders in developing their projects over the next five months. The goal is to arrive at projects that are implementable and fundable, leveraging the variety of federal recovery investments being made in the region.

OMA, BIG and WXY are just a few practices involved in the final round. Read on to review a glimpse of each shortlisted proposal.

The Spring 2013 Lecture Series at the College of Architecture and Design (CoAD) at NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology) began this month with Kathryn Dean’s talk and will conclude on April 18th. This semester, the series, which is free and open to the public, will feature Jonathan Massey, Nataly Gattegno + Jason Johnson, Tony & Margaret Santos, Ken Greenberg, Alan Organschi, and Axel Schmitzberger as keynote speakers. The concluding event is an AIA-endowed lecture by Will Bruder, which is also a part of the annual Design Showcase event. As part of the series, on March 6, CoAD will host a Spring Symposium on “Distributed Intelligence” sponsored by AIANJ. Lectures are Mondays at 5:30pm in Weston Lecture Hall unless otherwise noted. For more information, please visit here.

In response an outrage that broke out amongst Democrats and Republicans, after House Speaker John Boehner failed to vote for Sandy relief before the end of the Congressional session two days ago, the House of Representatives have approved a $9.7 billion relief measure to aid flood victims of Hurricane Sandy. This is good news, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) recently warned that it would soon run out of funding if no measures were taken. Senate approval is likely to come later in the day and a second congressional vote is scheduled to take place on January 15 for a larger $51 billion request. Understanding the importance of issuing this federal support, AIA President Mickey Jacob has offer Congress three key objects for helping these communities recover. Read AIA President Jacob’s letter to congress and his three objectives after the break…

The College of Architecture and Design (CoAD) at NJIT will be launching its Fall 2012 Lecture Series on October 15 with Neil Meredith’s talk on a recent project by Gehry Technologies, Burj Khalifa Office Ceiling. Featuring Fred Kent*, Alissia Melka-Teichroew, Ted Krueger, Nataly Gattegno + Jason Johnson, and William Sharples as keynote speakers throughout the series, it concludes with a lecture by Nader Tehrani. All lectures take place on Mondays at 5:30 in Weston Lecture Hall unless otherwise noted, and are free and open to public. For more information please visit here. More information after the break.

Taking place at Princeton University on October 13th from 10:00am-5:30pm, the ‘Performing Architecture’ symposium will bring together significant theorists and practitioners in the fields of architecture and performance and inviting a broader engagement with the artistic and academic community. In parallel with the art world’s return to performance and a renewed search for architecture’s social and political relevance, this symposium seeks to move beyond disciplinary hegemony in the dissemination of architecture today. Including Liz Diller(DS+R), Pedro Gadanho (MoMA), Vito Acconci, Roselee Goldberg, and many others, they hope to offer lasting provocations to how we think of the body, space, structure, and design in the disciplines of performance and architecture – and somewhere between the two. For more information, please visit here.

With ‘Revitalizing Cities’ as the theme, New Jersey Institute of Technology will be hosting the upcoming semi-annual AIAS Northeast Fall Quad Conference in Newark. As current architecture students, they have an invested interest in what the world will become in 5, 10, even 20 years from now. It is our mission to showcase the potential of urban environments, like Newark, and look forward to a progressive future. The four day conference, which takes place October 18-21, will focus on what we need to do as designers, planners and architects in order to strengthen the urban fabric in which we thrive. Hundreds of students and professionals alike will gather to discuss current and relevant issues in the profession and to understand how we can make these known to the general public. It will be supported by groups like the Project for Public Spaces who will be sending their president, Fred Kent, to speak on their behalf as our Keynote Speaker. For more information, please visit their website here.

Well known for their visionary architecture that people love to visit and go back to time and again, The Jerde Partnership has set out to attract more people through a realistic framework by transforming Atlantic City into the preferred coastal resort destination of the Northeastern United States. By creating a clean, green, safe city that pays homage to its storied history and takes advantage of its unique island setting, the new Atlantic City Tourism District master plan will offer a wide range of attractions and experiences for all ages. By promoting a strategy for redevelopment, phasing, and district-wide improvements, the master plan will serve as a catalyst for Atlantic City’s economic and social uplift. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Our friends at Dwell have shared with us their short film featuring the legendary Michael Graves inside his beautiful Princeton home in which he created out of a disused warehouse. In the film, Graves shares the discoveries he made when renovating his house and thoughts about his career, his practice and universal design.

The film was directed and edited by Gary Nadeau. Continue after the break for the complete list of credits.

With the guidance of their instructor Matthias Hollwich, students Andreas Tjeldflaat and Greg Knobloch from University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design have proposed an alternative to the traditional prisons seen throughout the United States. The innovative high-rise penitentiary acknowledges the fact that nearly two-thirds of the 14,000 inmates released annually from New Jersey correctional facilities will return to prison within five years. 499.SUMMIT offers a solution that intends to reverse that statistic and help inmates successfully transition back into society. Continue after the break for more.

Barcelona-based architect and scholar Alejandro Zaera-Polo has been selected as the next dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture, where he has served as a visiting lecture since 2008. He is internationally known for his award-winning practice, Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture, his extensive academic experience and contributions to international publications, such as El Croquis, Quaderns, A+U, Arch+, Volume and Log. He will succeed Brooklyn-based architect Stan Allen, who has served as the school’s dean since 2002. After the new appointment becomes effective on July 1, 2012, Allen plans to return to full-time teaching and architectural design after a yearlong sabbatical. As reported by Architectural Record, Allen stated, “We were looking for somebody who worked at a very high level as a designer-practitioner, but also approached architecture as an intellectual activity. There aren’t a lot of people like that out there.”

Based on 2010 Census results, the nation’s most densely populated urbanized area is Los Angeles/Anaheim/Long Beach, California, with nearly 7,000 people per square mile. Surprised? Not only did the Los Angeles area rank first, but of the ten most densely populated urbanized areas, nine are in the West, with seven of those in California. Continue reading for more.

The spring 2012 lecture series at the College of Architecture and Design (CoAD) at NJIT started on February 13 with Kiel Moe’s “Matter is But Captured Energy.” All lectures take place on Mondays at 5:30 in Weston Lecture Hall unless otherwise noted, and are free and open to public. The series will conclude with a talk by Preston Scott Cohen on April 19th. More information on the lecture series after the break.